The Leaving Year

by Pam McGaffin

“I’m just trying to be friendly here.”

  Yeah, and I’m just trying to read. That’s what Dena would say, but I only think it.

  “I’m going to Alaska, see if I can get on one a’ dem salmon boats. Can make a year’s salary in a few months. He sounds like he’s trying to convince me to go with him. “Gonna take that money and get me a place in Tucson. I like the desert.” He chuckles. “That’s ironical, ain’t it? Desert-lovin’ man going fishing.” He pauses and the seat squeaks as he changes positions. “Hey, you sure got pretty hair.” He leans forward, releasing a waft of stink. Still looking down, I get a fix on the handle of the suitcase at my feet, a strap sticking out from the backpack at my side.

  One. Two. Three.

  I grab my things and bolt once again to the ladies’ room, spilling my book in the aisle. I don’t stop to pick it up.

  “Hey!” he yells after me. Safely out of reach, I glance back at a big, oafish guy holding up my book. Maybe he was just trying to be friendly, but a Mom-ism lodges in my brain: “A woman alone always has to be on her guard.” I duck into the restroom, where two kids in PJs are brushing their teeth. A toilet flushes and a woman with her hair in pincurls walks out.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, panting. “There’s this guy …” I tilt my head toward the door and catch a fleeting glimpse of my scared self in the mirror. Her children stare, toothpaste dribbling down their chins. “He’s kind of weird. I don’t want to go back to my seat.”

  The mom turns to her children and reminds them to spit. Then she looks at me and her children again, as if adding up the numbers.

  “You’re by yourself?” she asks.

  I nod.

  “Come back with us. You can’t spend the night in here.”

  She introduces herself as Fran, short for Franny. They’re headed for Juneau, and she gives me the empty bunk in their four-berth cabin. I return the favor by playing endless games of Old Maid, Crazy Eights, and Go Fish with her kids—Bobby, who is five, and Jane, who’s seven. When they tire of cards, I get out my pen and notebook so we can play tic-tac-toe, hangman, and connect-the-dots.

  Later that evening, after I help Fran get them to sleep, she thanks me and tells me I’m really good with children.

  I shrug.

  “No, seriously, you should work with kids, be a teacher or counselor or something.” With her plain, no-nonsense face and muscular arms, Fran seems capable of handling a whole cafeteria full of children. I decide she knows what she’s talking about, and that she can be trusted.

  “My dad loved kids,” I say.

  She tilts her head. “Loved?”

  “He, um, was lost last summer. Fishing accident, they think.”

  “Oh!” She presses a hand to her lips. “I’m sorry. How awful for you.”

  “It’s okay.” I mean that it’s okay she asked, but I’m too tired to clarify things.

  Fran doesn’t probe, though she does get that pained expression of sympathy I’ve seen so many times now. Like a mother, she tells me, “Good night and sleep tight.”

  Dad would add, “and don’t let the bedbugs bite,” so I do too, which makes Fran giggle. I roll over on my side, nuzzling into the luxury of an actual pillow. If, during the night, we cross the same waters that might have swallowed the Lady Rose, I am too comatose to notice.

  OUR first stop in Alaska is a town called Metlakatla. Next is Ketchikan, “Salmon Capitol of the World,” and my destination. I’m in the dining area with Fran and her kids, eating the breakfast of pancakes and sausages she bought for me. All around us, people move, haul luggage, drag children, make plans. Ketchikan must be a popular spot. My stomach flutters with nerves. I have all my stuff with me, minus the book I dropped. I went back for it, but it was gone. It really bummed me out until I told myself that the Native myths were meant to be shared. That weird, smelly man looked like he could use a morality tale or two.

  In fifteen minutes, we’ll be docked in Ketchikan, possibly a long stone’s throw from Trinity’s big green house and where Dad may be living. Just the thought makes my heart do a tap dance. I really should be saying my good-byes to Fran and her family, but I can’t seem to breathe, let alone move. I have Trinity’s letter with her address. It wouldn’t be hard to find, and I have money for a cab, but suddenly the idea of showing up on her doorstep unannounced seems crazy. And what if, miracle of miracles, Dad answers the door? Will I say, “Hi, it’s me, the daughter you abandoned”?

  “Isn’t Ketchikan your stop?” Fran asks me. “Bobby, that’s enough syrup.”

  “Um, no, not really,” I stutter. “I mean, I’ll be going there eventually, but first I’m, uh, visiting my cousin in Petersburg.” As I say it, relief fills my lungs and I can breathe again. Sam’s in Petersburg. I’ll go see him at Nagoon Seafood Packers. Maybe I can even get a job there. I wanted to work this summer. This is my chance to earn some money. And I’ll be with Sam. What could be better? I can always see Trinity, and maybe Dad, once I work up the courage.

  “I must have misunderstood,” Fran says, eyeing me uncertainly. “Then you’ll be getting off one stop before us.”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  Bobby bounces in his chair, bumping into his sister.

  “Stop it, Bobby!” Jane turns to me. “I wish you could come with us to Juneau.”

  “So do I. It’s going to be tough saying good-bye to you guys.”

  AND it is. While Fran waves, the kids lean over the ferry railing blowing me kisses like I’m going off to a new world where nothing is familiar. It kind of feels that way. Petersburg looks like it’s trying to be someplace in Europe. There’s even a Viking ship in the center of town, though I don’t think it’s real. There are also green tree-covered hills, snow-capped peaks, colorful houses on stilts, and a big white building with red shutters painted in flower designs. It’s all very pretty and quaint, but nothing says Nagoon or Nagoon Seafood Processors. Somehow I thought I’d spot the cannery as soon as I got here. I thought the town would be built around it. That’s clearly not the case.

  An uneasiness seeps into my gut as I walk into a white building with a rainbow-shaped sign; “Scandia House, Fine Lodging.” I ask the lady behind the counter if she can direct me to Nagoon Seafood Packers.

  “Well, the fastest way is by seaplane.”

  “Seaplane?” I try to make sense of the words “sea” and “plane” together, and I draw a blank. “You mean I can’t walk there?”

  “Nagoon Island? Not unless you can walk on water.” She bends down behind the counter and brings out a map, spreading it in front of me. “You can walk to the seaplane dock from here.” With fast swipes of her pen, she draws an X where we are and an X where the dock is and a line between the two.

  “How much does it cost? The seaplane?”

  “We had some schedules.” She checks behind the counter, digging through a pile of loose paperwork. She frowns. “Must be out. But Chet can help you. He runs the office over there.”

  “Okay, thank you.” I take the map and head for the door, glancing up at the back of the rainbow sign advertising lodging I can’t afford. I sure hope I can find Nagoon and Sam before I have to spend the night on the streets of Petersburg.

  As I reach the door, the woman calls out after me, “You know, if you don’t mind waiting a bit, I could probably get Karl to run you over there in his boat.”

  I want to collapse in relief. “I don’t mind waiting.”

  Thank you, God.

  I introduce myself, holding out my hand so she can shake it.

  “Kate,” she says, taking my hand. Her grip is firm. She glances at my suitcase. “Figured you were far from home, thought maybe you could use a break.”

  She has me put my stuff behind the counter. “I’m from Annisport. I took the ferry.”

  She whistles. “The scenic route. Most cannery workers from the lower forty-eight fly up.”

  KARL, who I learn is Kate’s son, doesn’t say anything as he takes my suitcase, my backpack, and then me on board
. He’s clearly doing his mom a favor, but I’m so relieved I don’t care if he resents me. The ride over is windy and beautiful. Karl points out a sea lion on a red buoy and a big white glacier bisecting blue mountains. When we get to Nagoon and the cannery, it looks much more like the Alaska I imagined than Petersburg. The cluster of white buildings with red roofs is the only sign of civilization in a landscape of forested islands, water, and mountains. I feel very small in this wilderness. Karl seems at home, though. He drives the boat with the assurance of someone who knows these waters like city people know their stretches of concrete.

  Just when I think we’re about to ram the dock, he cuts the motor and we drift up and nudge it. He ties up, jumps out, and then helps me out, taking my stuff and lending me his hand. My legs wobble—the wooden dock feels more liquid than solid—but I recover enough to tell him thank you.

  “No sweat,” he says over the rumble of the engine. Then he’s off in a belch of blue exhaust.

  CHAPTER 19

  H & G

  A fish processing term meaning “headed and gutted”

  Up close the cannery resembles an army camp, or at least my impression of an army camp from watching Hogan’s Heroes. Most of its barracks-style buildings have seen better days. The paint is peeling and the red roofs have been patched over. What passes for a road through the cannery site has potholes the size of Volkswagens. Seeing no one, a panicky voice inside me wonders if this place has just been abandoned and I’m the last to know. Then I hear a faint thumping and follow the sound to a group of guys behind a house playing basketball. I’ll ask them where I can find the owner. There’s got to be an owner, right?

  “You mean the manager?” asks a tall guy with sweaty blond hair. He directs me to a small house with a sign out front that says “Administration.” I knock on a plain wood door.

  “Come in,” calls a female voice.

  I enter a small room with a big desk. Behind it, a pixie of a girl with short red hair and spider-like eyelashes is thumbing through a magazine. “Can I help you?” she asks, turning a page.

  “I—I heard you may need cannery workers?” This is a lie. I’ve heard nothing.

  She looks at me for the first time. “We’ve hired our crew already. You’re too late.” She goes back to her magazine like I’ve already left.

  Oh, crap. Now what do I do?

  My feet are rooted to the floor. I have no way of getting off the island. I let out a whoosh of air. “Okay.”

  Pixie Girl sighs. “Wait.” She turns around in her chair. “Daaad?” My heart jumps. “My dad’ll be out in a minute.”

  “Okay.” My voice sounds girlish, more like twelve than eighteen. This girl’s dad is going to see right through me and call my mother. I’ll be on the next ferry out of here. I hear a door open, approaching footsteps. This is either the smartest or the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.

  A short, potbellied man whose freckled skin is redder than his daughter’s hair emerges and tells me to come on back. I stand up, willing my legs not to shake, and follow him into a small, cluttered office. He plops into the chair behind his desk and asks me for some picture ID to show that I’m a US citizen. Trying to appear calm, I struggle a bit with the zipper on the front pocket of my backpack, get out my coin purse, and produce the fake driver’s license David’s friend made for me. I present it to him with what I hope is a steady hand, praying to God he can’t tell a forgery from the real thing. He gives the card a cursory glance and asks me if I’m prepared to work sixteen to eighteen hours a day at a job that’s both physically and mentally exhausting.

  I nod.

  His chair creaks as he leans back and gives me the once-over.

  “So, where you from, Susan?”

  The name from my fake ID stops me a second. I swallow and say, “Seattle.”

  For what seems like an hour, he just stares at me, saying nothing. He leans forward again, and the chair creaks so loudly, I fear it might break. “How’d you get here?” he asks, finally.

  “Boat.”

  “Okay.” He pauses. “Well, you timed it right. We just had a girl quit. Do you have a way home if you can’t hack the job?”

  “Yes.” A half-lie.

  He squeezes his hand into a fist, cracking his knuckles. “You seem sturdy enough. We’ll start you in the slime house. Pay is $1.65 an hour, $2.55 for overtime. It’s not much, but we provide meals and housing, such as it is.” He fishes through a drawer in his desk, removes a form, and hands it to me. “Fill this out. Annie!” he yells. I flinch.

  His daughter appears at the doorway. “This is Susan Stone. I’m putting her at the washing station to start. Get her gear, go over some safety stuff, and have her bunk with Jody.”

  It’s so easy; too easy. “You mean I’ve got a job?”

  “Yep.”

  The form is an application, which seems a bit backwards, but I fill in the blanks, giving my fake name and fake hometown but my real address and telephone number. Lying gets easier the more you do it. I hand it to Annie, who’s forced once again away from her magazine. She leaves my application on the desk, gets up, and grabs a jacket off a hook on the wall. “You can leave that here for now,” she says, looking askance at my girly suitcase.

  We walk to the main cannery building. A small room in back is filled with rain gear. Each worker gets a pair of bib overall pants, a hooded jacket, boots, and two sets of gloves—a woolen pair and a rubber pair to go over them. The outfit comes in green or yellow. I choose green.

  My safety lesson consists of learning where the First Aid box is located. I’m to raise my hand, like I’m in school, if I’m hurt or need a supervisor. Hand signals are used instead of words because the noise of the machines makes it too loud to talk.

  “Don’t wear anything loose and dangly, like scarves or jewelry,” she warns.

  I don’t tell her about the locket hiding under my clothes, the locket I won’t remove for any reason, even showering. It’s part of me, even if the man who gave it had divided attentions.

  “Oh, and do you have something to hold back your hair?” Annie looks at my frizzy mane like she’d like to take scissors to it. “We had a girl last year got her hair caught in the conveyor belt. Ripped out a quarter-sized chunk of her scalp.” She holds her thumb and pointer finger about an inch apart to show me just how bad the wound was. “If you don’t have a stocking cap or a bandana, you can maybe find a baseball cap at the general store. Otherwise, you’re going to have to wear a company-issue hairnet.” She scrunches up her nose as if she wouldn’t be caught dead in a company-issue hairnet, which seems an odd thing to be vain about considering everything else that’s unattractive about this job.

  On the way to the women’s bunkhouse, she points out “the mess,” which I learn is another word for cafeteria, and tells me that her full name is Annie Murphy but everyone calls her Murf. “You’re here long enough, you get a nickname. This your first time canning in Alaska?”

  “Both,” I tell her. “First time canning. First time in Alaska.”

  “We have lots of newbies this year. You’re lucky to get Jody as a roommate. She started with us last summer. She’s nice and can teach you all you need to know.”

  The women’s bunkhouse is at the end of the road. Beyond the roadblock, a narrow trail continues through the trees. I’m about to ask Murf where it goes, but she is explaining that the women’s showers are in a separate building behind the bunkhouse. “In some ways, the guys have it better, but your dorm is nicer.”

  “Nicer” is a long white building, barracks-style like all the rest. We walk into a big common area furnished with a ratty orange sofa, a mix of plush and hardback chairs, and a Formica table. My room is toward the back of the common area, on the right. With its two sets of built-in wooden bunk beds, it could sleep four, but my only roommate is stretched out on one of the lower bunks.

  “Susan, meet Jody. Jody, meet Susan,” Murf says.

  Jody slides her legs around to the side of her bunk and stan
ds. She’s about a head shorter than I am but strong and wiry, like she’d lap me running around our school track. Her red T-shirt is faded to almost pink, and her blue jeans are faded to almost white. She wears her long black hair in a ponytail hanging through the back of her red baseball cap, also faded. She reaches out a dark-skinned arm and shakes my hand, jiggling, as she does, a bunch of macramé-bead bracelets dangling from her wrist. Her skin is callused, her grip firm.

  “Welcome to Can-a-lot.” Her low voice seems to belong to a much bigger person.

  “Jody can show you around and explain what you’ll be doing,” Murf says to me.

  “What will she be doing?”

  Jody asks. “Slime House, washing station.”

  Jody smiles. “Lucky you.”

  Murf leaves, Jody puts on a coat, and we exchange what I’ve come to learn are the usual cannery introductions. Like Murf, she asks where I’m from and if I’ve canned before. Unlike Murf, she wants to know what I plan to do with the money.

  Jody is a local girl and envious of the fact that I come from the “big city.” She assures me that I’ll get the hang of canning in no time. The challenge is how long you can stand it. The work is so tiring and monotonous that making it back for a second summer qualifies you as a veteran. It’s the opportunity to earn a grand or two in overtime pay that attracts so many students from the outside.

  “Next month, if we’re lucky, we’ll get a solid block of twelve-to sixteen-hour days.” She seems excited by this prospect, and since I’m supposedly here for the money, I have to agree.

  “If we’re lucky,” I echo.

  “Hey, time and a half. Got to make enough to get me out of this hellhole.” Jody reaches into her coat pocket, pulls out a pack of cigarettes, offers me one.

  “No thanks. I don’t smoke.”

  “Good for you.” She lights one, takes a drag and blows the smoke out her nose.

  As Jody and I walk towards the cannery, she points out the main buildings along the way. Administration, post office/general store, mess, the men’s bunkhouse, where the same four guys are playing basketball, and the Filipino bunkhouse and mess, both older buildings with peeling paint.